Trick-o-Treat

This design is a loose upscale of the LOC Lil Nuke, in 98mm Dyna-Wind airframe with 54mm motor mount. It's a great all-round sport rocket, perfect for drag races!

Motivation

Keith and Bdale wanted to drag-race airframes using TeleMetrum v0.1 altimeters with GPS modules at NCR Oktoberfest 2009. Unfortunately, they didn't have suitable matching airframes. Bdale quickly designed this rocket to be something they both would build, and delivered a semi-kit of parts including plywood fins and CNC-cut centering rings to Keith just in time for two rockets to be ready to race!

Design Details

  • 98mm Giant Leap Dyna-Wind air frame
  • 54mm phenolic motor mount
  • Public Missiles 54mm HAMR motor retainer
  • MadCow Rocketry 98mm nose cone, though we debated using the Giant Leap Pinnacle 98mm nose cone, which would also be a good choice
  • 1/4 inch glassed birch plywood fins in a custom shape, with beveled edges
  • 3/8 inch birch plywood centering rings and bulkheads, CNC milled, the two that hold the fins are notched for perfect fin alignment.
  • avionics bay built as a "slug" that slides into a single piece of airframe tubing containing both apogee and main deployment bays

The OpenRocket design file is TrickOTreat.ork.

Build

Construction occurred during September 2009.

Publicity

Trick-o-Treat is featured on the 999J600 Red Lightning page of the Cesaroni Pro38 catalog

Flights

First flown at NCR's Oktoberfest 2009, in a drag race with Keith's nearly identical airframe "Candy Cane" on Cesaroni Pro38 6XL 999J600 Red Lightning motors. Trick-o-Treat got off the rail first, Candy Cane got slightly more altitude... Due to a wiring error, Trick-o-Treat deployed the main at apogee leaving Bdale with a longish walk, while Candy Cane flew perfectly!

Flown many times since at Hudson Ranch and elsewhere as a test mule carrying prototypes of TeleMetrum, TeleMini, and MegaMetrum.